ariana sexton-hughes

true

i hide

i live afraid
alone inside
my
hall of mirrors

my
inner

hall
of shame

yes

yes

yes
it started
so
so
very
young

me,
the daughter
of a match 

made not in heaven
but
borne of everlasting lust
encrusted
in the thrill of conquest
and
in the stench
of
several
gory
gusts
of that oh-so-certain
pain

me,
the little ariana,
fathered
by
that scion
of oh-so-fleeting wealth
made all-too-powerful
by all the right connections
the wrong education
and
that blinding, truly blinding
blind ambition

yes,
baby me
birthed
by
a model beauty
of a once great lineage
but, 

an ever

all-too-uncertain fortune

ahhhhh
he
was strong
and ripped
and tough
and privileged
so cocky
so arrogant
so totally bereft
of compassion
or
love
or any
legitimate sensibility
or sensitivity
or even 

the smallest little feeling

no
no
no feeling
none
none at all

ahhhhhhh
she 

so petulant
unrelenting
diabolical in form

yes
beautiful
so, so very beautiful
delicately featured
so 

finely boned

so

so

well-honed

trimmed

and

toned

yet
breakable,
super sensitive
and
yes

yes

yes

very much
insane

she
says,
he “ravaged” her,
“savagely,”
in ecstasy
sensually
expressively
inventively

he says,
he 

“fell 

for her”
and
“accepted
her”
the madness
the dis-ease
the striving
the
bribing
the crying
and
conniving

she says,
“he took”
her
“he stole”
her
“he used” her
“abused” her
“raped” her
splayed her
“played her
for
the
fool”

she says,
(in anger)
“i was unwanted”
“un-needed”
“extraneous”
“extemporaneous”
“an accident
that marred
a (maybe)brilliant

career
mid-stride”

some grand career….

they lied

they really, really, really lied

first of all
they used each other
yes, indeed

he wanted:
“model(pretty)”
glamorous
amorous
sinuous
stunning
super electric
seductive
sensitive
swinging
and
sensational

she wanted:
stable
sophisticated
educated
sensitive
seductive
supersharp
monied
and
most of all,
super, super strong

yet,
all of it
every little morsel
…all of it
was wrong

lie after lie after lie after lie
they told each other
smiling
slyly
thriving
in
each other’s
languid little arms
tethered together
for
torrid
torrential
truly, utterly, insatiable
fun
and
games
and
fun
and games
and
that
always infinite
psychosocial seduction
their endless, relentless
most certainly sociopathic
pain

then
the anger
and more anger
and more anger
and
ever more and more and more
anger

then,
vengeance
hate
and blame
and more blame
and
more
and more and more and more
blame

which
begat
ever
more blame
and
ever
more shame
and more and more and more and 

more and more 

and
ever
more
blame

taken
together
they
fed
off each other

unsated,
they ate
and
they hated
as
they mated
and
they gnawed
then
they clawed
as
they
ate
each other’s
…brains

seriously

i watched


i saw
i shall not forget them
no, i shall not forget them
sucking
the logic
the love
the flesh
the desire
from deep inside
each other’s limbic lobes
these sociopathic
psychopathic
oh-so-beautiful
brains

model (pretty)
sure.

but
could they?
could they
ever
ever
truly
endure?

no.
never.
not possible.
“no f*cking way.”
“no?” you say?
impossible?
how?
he implanted
his seedling
after all

and what a mess
THAT
would be
to have little miss (pretty)
give birth
to 

little miss (me)

yes
i dashed their plans
(for a moment, at least)
i disemboweled all of them
every little scheme
making movies
and television
nightclubbing
hot-tubbing
every
night
all-night
cocaine romps
and ecstasy excursions
model (pretty)?
NO. it wasn’t pretty
oh, no.
not at all.
it was very, very ugly.
a very ugly
mess.

that loss
of
in-de-pen-dence
that loss
of
ad-o-les-cence
that loss
of
inner eff-er-ves-cence
and so much
inter-de-pen-dence

“after
[i was] born,”
so she says,
she
wasn’t
model (pretty)
nope.
“not ‘model’ pretty
anymore.”

“WHAT?”
i scream to myself.
“she gained some weight?”
“added bags under her eyes
…from sleepless nights?”
“and all those relentless four a.m. feedings?”
“model pretty?”
“BURP.”
“hmmmmm, what does that entail?”
i huffed,
“a life lived
devoid
of food?
affection?
of warmth?
of love?
perhaps a hint,
a scintilla,
a sliver,
of
physical
affection?”

i wondered,
“who is this woman?”
“so thin.”
“so strong.”
“how could everything
be
so
wrong?”

“model (pretty)?”

“well,” i chortled.
“pretty is
as pretty
does.”

“model (pretty)?”
“how ugly it was.”
“near starvation.”
“constant privation.”
“anger.”
“deceit.”
“convoluted conceit.”
“ultimately, defeat.”

“model (pretty)?”
“ha.”
“is that who i am?”
“no.”
“this is not, who i shall become.”

 

thursday, september 10, 2009 at 10:18am 

 

© 2009-2021 by ariana sexton-hughes

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